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Monday, 25 June 2012

Secrets of the Third Reich - First Game and Impressions

Today folks I played my first game of Secrets of the Third Reich by West Wind Productions with a fellow member of Dice and Decks Gaming Club.

We tried a squad on squad run-through and found it very quick and easy to learn the rules, and so we had two quick run-throughs before going straight into a quick match between a Command Squad and a Rifle Squad on each side, with me using my British and my opponent using the Germans. We decided to use a 15RP limit and so we used body armour, and then upgraded the squads to use various weapon types. I won each of the run-throughs and then the match we played, using the board and the terrain to mask my troops and force my opponent to advance at me, meaning I could get a few shots in before getting some back.

Casualties work in an interesting way in SOTR, after hitting your enemy (on a 4+, with modifiers for cover and terrain adding a +1 or +2 modifier), you roll on a chart comparing your weapon type (Rifle = Light Infantry, or Boyes Anti-Mech Rifle = Light Anti-tank for example) against the armour of your opponent, there are then two numbers for required to roll, the first (higher) number is the roll needed to produce a "Goner" result, killing your opponent, whilst a second number is the roll needed to "Down" your enemy, representing wounded but not killed troopers. Light Armour meant this was a 5 and a 3 respectively for all the troops we used.

We found that cover is a life-saver in this game, without it, not even armour can protect basic infantry enough for them to advance through a hail of weapons fire. On average, I would say for each time a squad fired, at least 3 troops were killed outright with around 1 or 2 more downed, effectively halving the squad.

As a review of the game I can say I am deeply impressed, rules are easy, I feel confident enough to play without the rules needing to be constantly open in front of me. The special rules haven't been truly learned to tried yet, we tried the Optical Range-finder, which removes adds a +1 modifier to the hit roll. I think they will add a greater level of detail to the game. I highly recommend this game folks! Seriously, have a go!